The relationship matters.

Research consistently shows that the relationship between therapist and client is one of the most important factors in effective therapy — often more than the specific techniques used.

Working together will be guided by three principles that sit at the core of lasting change and robustness:

  • Acceptance — learning to drop the struggle with what’s outside of your control.

  • Courage — exploring challenge and uncertainty with honesty and direction.

  • Wisdom — translating insight into steady, practical steps that move you toward what matters.

These qualities shape the tone of the work — clear, collaborative, and truly compassionate. Therapy that isn’t abstract or overly sentimental; it’s a process of making sense of your experience, strengthening perspective, and building confidence in how you handle life’s demands.

How the Work Comes Together.

Each session is a mix of conversation, reflection, and strategy. We explore what’s happening in your life, what it brings up inside you, and what can shift to help you move forward.

The work is:

  • Discussional yet flexible — a useful dialogue, not a script.

  • Goal-oriented yet open — guided by what matters to you while allowing what naturally arises.

  • Grounded in understanding — psychoeducation clarifies why you feel and react as you do, easing shame and building self-trust.

  • Context-aware — we explore how stress, relationships, or old coping strategies sustain patterns so change becomes possible.

As the work deepens, we examine and rebuild beliefs that no longer serve you — the quiet rules that keep you striving, hiding, or doubting yourself. Alongside this, we cultivate compassion and acceptance: meeting difficulty with steadiness rather than criticism. When helpful, we may trace patterns back to earlier experiences — not to dwell there, but to understand and change the relationship to what still holds weight.

Throughout, there’s a steady return to focus — what you want for yourself and the direction you’re choosing. This ongoing balance of reflection and movement strengthens robustness: the capacity to think clearly under pressure, respond flexibly to challenge, and act with confidence and care.

Frequently Asked Questions.

  • In our sessions, we’ll start by understanding the key issues you’re facing and the changes you hope to achieve. We’ll steer toward the present, but where necessary, bridge to the past for deeper-rooted problems. Each session will involve discussing your week or a broader topic. I like to use a whiteboard to walk through various conceptual models to help build cognitive understanding and then set tasks between the sessions to put this into practice. My general role is to stitch our discussions back to the focus, ensuring progression and skill building in the direction you want. This journey can naturally end or continue as long as you need support.

  • You are an expert on your world, and I have certain expertise to share with you. By working with me, I will help you identify, understand and challenge unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaviour that will be fuelling your emotional challenges. We will develop practical skills and strategies to manage and change these thoughts and behaviours, and I will support you in finding healthier and more adaptive ways forward.

  • Typically, 12 to as many as you want. However, it depends on what you'd like to work on. In the beginning, it's helpful to have regular weekly sessions, and then we can move to more of a check-in model (for instance, every other week, once a month, or ad hoc). It's important to recognise that we're looking to build incremental change over time, rather than expecting big shifts immediately. Breaking our unhelpful patterns that have been repeated for decades takes time. It's like learning a new language, skill or technique. Periods of trial and error is essential to learning and finding sustained growth and change.

  • The timeline for experiencing change in CBT varies for each individual, but many clients begin to notice improvements within a few weeks to a few months of dedicated sessions and the application of new skills and insights. Progress hinges on several factors, including the nature of the issues being addressed, the frequency of sessions, and the effort invested in tasks outside of therapy. By combining cognitive and behavioral techniques, clients learn to counteract unhelpful emotional patterns, enhancing their resilience and proving to themselves that they can cope. Over time, this growing self-belief transforms how they feel about the challenges they encounter. Remember, it’s essential to remain patient and communicative about your experiences and progress along the way.

Next steps